(December 24, 2009)—The snow that fell on Christmas Eve across much of Central Texas moved out Thursday evening and bitter cold settled in.

Temperatures will be in the 20s on Christmas morning and wind chill readings could be as low as 15 degrees at the start of the day.

Christmas Day will be sunny, but highs won’t rise out of the 40s and the temperature will drop back into the 20s Friday night.

Enough snow fell Thursday on parts of Central Texas that some residents may enjoy a white Christmas Friday, but there’s no precipitation in the Christmas Day forecast.

In western areas of Central Texas, accumulations of 1 to 3 inches were reported Thursday, but the bigger problem was the wind.

In Gatesville, a major power outage left residents in a large area of the community without power Thursday afternoon, although it wasn’t immediately clear if high winds were the cause.

Power outages were also reported in the Bellmead area and there were scattered reports of downed lines at homes throughout Central Texas.

In Gatesville, high winds blew down an aluminum storage shed just before 5 p.m. Thursday behind a used car dealership in the 1600 block of Main Street.

The shed was used to display fixtures.

No one was injured.

A wind advisory was extended until 4 a.m. Friday for all of Central Texas because of the gusts.

The National Weather Service says the region west and northwest of the Dallas-Fort Worth area experienced blizzard-like conditions throughout the day Thursday as up to 8 inches of snow fell in the region.

Winds gusting at up to 65 mph drifted the snow as deep as 5 feet in some areas.

The weather service says no blizzard warning had ever been issued for an area of Texas as far south as Interstate 20, but on Thursday the heavily traveled interstate was closed for most of the day between
Cisco and Abilene after six inches of snow fell in the area 130 miles west of Dallas.

Crews worked late in the afternoon to reopen the highway to traffic.

An advisory Thursday for Houston's Hobby Airport cited weather problems and low visibility affecting traffic bound for the Dallas area, with delays topping two hours.

American Airlines, with its main hub at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, offered travelers the chance to change their weather-affected flights Thursday with no penalty.

Dallas-based Southwest Airlines advised travelers to be aware of possible delays or cancellations, especially in storm-swept areas such as Minneapolis, Kansas City and Omaha, Neb.

A city statement said most flights at Wichita Falls Municipal Airport were canceled Thursday, as temperatures dipped below freezing and snow fell.

Dozens of truckers and motorists were stranded Thursday at a truck stop on Interstate 40 in western Oklahoma as the strong winter storm blew through the state.

The worst of the storm was expected to hit the nation’s midsection Thursday and Friday, producing heavy snow, sleet and rain over a large swath of the Plains and the Midwest.

A foot or two of snow was possible in some areas.

The National Weather Service issued blizzard warnings early Thursday for Kansas, western North Dakota and northern Minnesota.

By midmorning Thursday, nearly 100 scheduled flights from Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport had been canceled and dozens more were delayed.